


Missing Home

by BackyardPodcast



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Board Games, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith is observant, Keith's Point of View, Lance is an uncle!, Lance talks about his family, Light Angst, M/M, The other characters are there too, but not enough to really deserve a tag, keith pov, unestablished relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 04:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13116288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BackyardPodcast/pseuds/BackyardPodcast
Summary: Lance gets homesick. Keith notices. One time he follows Lance out.





	Missing Home

    It always seemed to be the little things that made Lance homesick. He refused to talk about it, or at least talk about it with Keith, but Keith still noticed. It would strike Lance in the most relaxed, happy moments. They’d be eating breakfast and joking around, making fun of Coran’s cooking and such, when he would get this look on his face, like he had just gotten a punch to the gut. And then he’d either cover it up with a bright, fake smile or excuse himself and limp out of the room. Keith always wondered where he would go; he was never in his room.

    The most recent incident was when they had all been playing some Altean board game in their lounge. Shiro had fallen to dead last, struggling to find a strategy that wasn’t instantly destroyed by another player. Keith was fourth, not completely understanding the rules. Lance was next, making rigorous deals with varying degrees of success. Pidge dangled in second, murmuring under her breath her plans to get to the top. Hunk stood in first, smirking as he dominated.

    Lance and Pidge were arguing over whether or not Pidge could stack her pieces on top of each other.

    “It completely destroys the purpose of the game if you can just-” Lance.

    “There is nothing in the rules saying I can’t-” Pidge.

    “It’s implied, Pidge!”

    “So you admit that it isn’t in there-”

    “You still can’t do that-”

    “Lance, so help me, I will replace your shampoo and conditioner with food goo!”

    Lance started at that. His face shifted into the one where he looked like he had gotten sucker punched. Upon noticing his shift in mood, Pidge pulled back, and her eyebrows moved into a position of concern. “Woah, hey, Lance-”

    “It’s fine.” Lance wiped his eyes. “It’s just-- You looked like my niece there for a second.” He gave a sad smile, and then laughed. “Isn’t that weird? You look nothing like her.” He laughed again and wiped his eyes again. “I’m just gonna-- I’m gonna duck out for a bit. I’ll see you guys later.” Lance stood up and walked out of the room without another word. Silence filled the space where Lance should’ve been.

    Pidge was the first to break the quiet. “...I didn’t know Lance was an uncle.”

    “He has a niece and a nephew. His sister’s kids.” That was Hunk. Of course he would know.

    There was another lull. Keith was the one to fill it this time. “Do you guys mind if I-”

    “Go.” Shiro answered the question before it even fully left Keith’s lips. Keith slowly traipsed out of the lounge, only starting to run once he was out of the sight of his fellow paladins. He didn’t bother looking in Lance’s room; it was a waste of time. He never went there when he was homesick.

    Keith checked the bridge, then the Blue Lion’s hanger, both empty of Lance. The pool was next. Nothing. He dashed back to the bridge, where Coran was. When Keith asked if he knew where Lance might be, Coran asked _him_ if he’d checked the empty bedrooms. He was doing that minutes later. “Lance?” he called into each room. Silence would shout back every time. Until one time he didn’t have to even ask for Lance.

    At what must’ve been the fiftieth door, Keith found him sitting on that room’s bed, clutching an old-fashioned photograph in his hands. Most people back on Earth these days would’ve just kept a digital copy, or a holographic one if they wanted to display it. Maybe not these days. Keith didn’t know what was going on on Earth ‘these days.’ He hadn’t been there in… months? Maybe a year? More importantly, neither had Lance. And Lance had people on Earth waiting for him. He didn’t have the freedom of no ties to their home planet. He had someplace better to be than up in space, someplace safe. Keith wished Lance could’ve stayed there instead, for both his family’s and his own sake. Even if that meant Keith not getting to know him himself.

    “Lance,” Keith said.

    Lance flinched at the sound of his name, apparently not noticing that he wasn’t alone until then. He quickly stuffed the photo behind his back. “Hey there, Keith.” Lance didn’t attempt to inject fake cheeriness into his voice.

    “Do you mind if I join you?”

    “Free country.”

    Keith laughed lightly at that. “Lance, we’re in space.”

    “Would you prefer, ‘There are no laws in space?’” Lance had a small smile on his face.

    “I would prefer you just scooting over.”

    Lance did. Keith sat down next to him. Silence and somberness filled the room.

    Keith was the first to talk. “...What’s your niece like?”

    A smile began to grow on Lance’s face again. “Her name’s Lísa. She was nine when we left. She hates other people’s rules, but has very specific rules she set, like at eight o’clock she has to stretch. She wants to be able to do the splits, both her left and right front splits and the hurdle, so she could be a professional dancer. She always said that was what made her a Slytherin.”

    Keith snorted at that particular descriptor.

    “What? You said you wanted to know about her.” Lance was smiling broadly, which somehow worked in tandem with the tears glistening in his eyes. He wiped at his face and then leaned against Keith. Keith hadn’t been expecting that. Somewhat on it's own, his hand snaked down Lance’s arm to slip into the fingers waiting for it.

    “Tell me about the rest of your family,” Keith said.

    Lance took out the photo from behind his back and pointed out people as he spoke. “Lísa has an older brother, Sergio-” He pronounced it ‘Ser-hyo.’ “-Sergio plays a lot of basketball, but his real passion is piano. Their mother is named Melanie. She’s the oldest out of my siblings. Then there’s Markas...“ Lance walked Keith through every single one of his family members. There was his grandmother, Paz, who had Alzheimer’s and always forgot about the invention of the Internet, but was also always on social media. There was his uncle, Diego, who ran a grocery store and organized the produce into perfect piles. There was his mother, Valery, who could rap like it was nobody’s business but only ever put that talent to use to sing musical theater. It amazed Keith how well Lance could know so many people all at once and not forget even the tiniest detail, despite not seeing them for months on end. It also amazed Keith that he now knew many of these tiny details, and yet they didn’t even know he existed.

    “I’d like to meet them someday. When we get back to Earth,” Keith said when Lance trailed off.

    “That would be nice.” Lance smirked. “You can be my proof. How can they deny I’ve been in space if I bring home an alien?”

    “I don’t even look like I’m Galra. What are you going to do, show them my blood tests?” Keith asked.

    “Nah, I’ll just make them look at your eyes. They’re purple, man, what other explanation can there be?”

    Keith narrowed his eyes, playful. “Two things. One, maybe they’re just blue, and it’s a trick of the light. That’s what I thought for years. Two, when did you notice the color of my eyeball?”

    “Like you don’t know the color of my eyes.” Lance was dodging the question, and they both knew it.

    “That’s different,” Keith said.

    “In what way?” Lance leaned his weight onto the hand holding Keith’s, drawing Keith’s attention to their sustained contact.

    He glanced down towards it, then back to Lance’s face. His eyes were the color of deep ocean. “I-- I guess it’s not.” he managed. Keith wasn’t sure, but Lance’s face seemed to take on a redder tone at those words. He leaned away from Keith, still holding his hand, but didn’t say anything. Keith spoke instead. “We’ll make it through this.” He held up their entwined hands. “Together. You’ll get to see your family again, and maybe I’ll get to meet them, too. If you want me there, that is.”

    Lance squeezed Keith’s hand. “I wouldn’t want anyone else.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave kudos and comments!


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